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Thread ID: 74760	2006-12-04 06:33:00	can i do this	newbee (10498)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
504161	2006-12-04 06:33:00	i have got 2 computers at home, 1 newish and 1 that my son uses, that just died on the weekend, but the hard drive is still allright. now can i put his hard drive into my computer so he can run his hard drive programes and stuff, and i can use my hard drive but they will be seperate to each other eg at start up can choose which hard drive runs, they both have xp installed with there own keys if i can do this do i need any software for it to work	newbee (10498)
504162	2006-12-04 06:50:00	Hi sir (it feels insulting to call you "newbee"). I am sure you can mount your son's hard drive as a secondary (was it called slave?) in your own computer. If the computer died out due to some minor occurences (e.g. power supply unit failure), you might just want to repair it or bring it to a computer shop to get it fixed instead of merging two computers into one. Cheers :)	Renmoo (66)
504163	2006-12-04 06:58:00	the computer is stuffed as a can of v has been tipped over the case and it found it's way to the mother board, power supply and a few other things but i have managed to save the hard drive	newbee (10498)
504164	2006-12-04 08:04:00	Pretty sure what you ask can be done, ie dual-booting, although I think it would be a pretty complex procedure to set up, and I never heard of dual-booting two versions of the same operating system. It'd probably be a lot simpler to install his drive into your computer and copy the data he wants to the main drive, format it, and use it for data storage and/or running his applications. You could set up two profiles on your machine so that each of you runs your own stuff.	Greg (193)
504165	2006-12-04 08:30:00	it would be easyer to do it that way but i would prefer to keep his files and stuff seperate from my stuff. as i don't want half the cr*p he has had on his computer, plus i have even seen him turn of the firewall and virus scaner when there was a virus on his computer just so he could keep playing a on line game so i would like to keep them as 2 if i can thank's for the ideas every one	newbee (10498)
504166	2006-12-04 08:57:00	want you ask can be done using the Pc bios to change the boot order. I used this method when I had xp and linux installed on separate drives, the problem though is the secound hard drive Os (XP) has been activated for different hardware and proberly wont boot anyway (there is method that may work round this ) your options as I see them 1. install secound disk as slave recover data Format reinstall sons apps and games copy data back 2. ring Microsoft New Zealand and see if they will allow an activation of a secound version of XP on the same hardware. The number is the phone book. when you activate xp, part of the activation process identifies what hard ware is in your pc and if there is significant change ie hard disk swapped into another machine then there is a very significant change in hardware setup which may trigger a reactivation sequence ie the need for step 2	beama (111)
504167	2006-12-04 15:31:00	as stated you can do that with a bios setting change to boot order to set it to boot from whichever harddrive you choose......also you may be albe to use a program such as 'bootUS' (free) which will give you an option at startup of which drive to boot from......however you cant expect that your sons drive will work in your puter without some extra work.......your puter will have differernt hardware to your sons puter and therefore the version of windows on 'his' drive will have quite different drivers etc on it and it'll almost certainly 'blue screen' when you try to run it........this doesnt' always happen but it does in about 90% of cases in my experience.......it's not that hard to fix you just need to then boot to safe mode with that drive if you can and remove the drivers from device manager and then reboot........windoze will install what drivers it can but you'll need to put your motherboard cd in and install what other drivers it needs ........the other method is to do a 'repair install' on your sons drive, (in your puter) this'll work for sure, (ive done this many times) .....you'll still need to install some drivers afterwards tho from your own motherboard cd and yes it'll need to be 're-activated' with microsoft this is usually an automated process online very quick and simple but in the case where something doesnt' want to activate for whatever reason you'll need to ring them and do it by phone..just tell em you've had to reinstall the system (dont metion it's a different puter if it's an OEM version of windows) and they should be quite happy to re-activate it for you.....	drcspy (146)
504168	2006-12-04 20:11:00	i would prefer to keep his files and stuff seperate from my stuff. as i don't want half the cr*p he has had on his computer, plus i have even seen him turn of the firewall and virus scaner when there was a virus on his computer just so he could keep playing a on line game Then don't even put his HDD in your machine. You'll have viruses in 5 minutes. He can claim insurance on his dead PC and wait till he gets the new one then put his HDD in it to retrieve his data.	pctek (84)
504169	2006-12-04 21:29:00	It may not even boot, driver issues, but try pressing F8 at booy-up and select the second HD to boot from.	Rob99 (151)
504170	2006-12-05 07:30:00	thanks for all the feed back looks like a bit of home work is in order re: pctec can't claim insurance as don't have it	newbee (10498)
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